An in depth look at the particular, and peculiar, ideologies of U.S. fascist organizations that emerged during the crisis of the 1930s from the Communist League of Struggle’s Murray Braun.

‘Fascist Organizations in America’ by Murray Braun from Class Struggle (C.L.S.). Vol. 4 Nos. 1, 2, & 3. January, February, & March, 1934.

I.

If Roosevelt is able to impose the seeds of fascism from above, it is because below there is sufficient soil rich enough in which to plant it. The same set of objective factors which make necessary the cartelization of industry and the scrapping of `rugged individualism’ is also bound to produce a number of embryonic fascist groups from the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie itself. It is for this reason that as early as August 1930, one already finds the beginnings of a real American fascist organization—the American Fascistic Association and Order of Black Shirts. Naturally, fascist organizations existed among the foreign population even earlier than 1930, but in the Black Shirts, one finds an organization adapted to the American scene and modeled along typically American lines. Taking advantage of the strong tradition of the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Shirts took out a charter in Atlanta, Georgia, and commenced their operations with the slogan, “Drive the Negroes out of jobs and put whites in their place.” They did not forget the Communists, however, and also proposed to fight Communism in Georgia. Since there never were many Communists in Georgia, this provided them with a program easy to fulfill while the Negro (as the Jew in Germany) supplied the psychological basis necessary to attract a large membership.

The southern bourgeoisie has been well prepared by the Ku Klux Klan for an attack upon the Negroes as the cause for all his troubles. The Black Shirts, therefore, accepted its American heritage rather than the German precedent of spearing the Jew. At the same time they were thus given an opportunity to show some results since they were in this way able to supply a few of their members with jobs. Thus they cloaked themselves with an economic panacea for the unemployed white. While the Black Shirts contended that they made no charge for membership, every member was compelled to pay a fee of one dollar to have his name placed upon their unemployed list. For this honorarium the members were given the right to wear a black shirt and received the promise of a job. Since the organization, however, had no jobs to offer its members, it attempted to create them by the simple expedient of serving demands upon employers to fire their Negro help and employ whites in their places. By this process the Black Shirts contended that in a short while they were able to supply jobs for 600 men.

The official organ of the Black Shirts at that time was an anonymously edited weekly of the same name containing the motto “America for Americans”. Eventually, they undoubtedly intended to include the Jew and the Catholic. At least by this slogan they left open for themselves the loop hole whereby this could be done. In the issue of August 29th, 1930, the claim was made that more than 27,000 members had joined. This was, without question, an exaggeration although the possibility of a tremendous gain in its followers is not to be underestimated when one keeps in mind the race prejudice, the industrial conditions in the South, and the heritage of the Ku Klux Klan.

Very early in its career the Black Shirts attempted to fulfill their promise to fight Communism by strongly supporting the prosecution of six Communists arrested in Atlanta, ostensibly for insurrection. These workers faced a death sentence if convicted and the Black Shirts Clamored for their blood. It was said that the Black Shirts went so far as to intimidate citizens fighting for a fair trial.

Of the men responsible for the organization of the group of blackguards, it is sufficient to say that the leader, R.A. Gordon, was defeated in 1930 for the office of mayor of Atlanta—- an ordinary politician disappointed with the failure of a democratic ballot to put him into a nice fat job. Gordon was aided and abetted by R.S. Gulledge and Holt Gwinner. The chief spellbinder of the Black Shirts was J.O. Wood—one time candidate for the governorship of Georgia. Wood, however, was soon afterwards repudiated by the Black Shirts and denounced by them in their paper. Wood probably wanted too much for his services.

Six months prior to the organization of the Black Shirts, the Fascists League of North America pretended to disband. Count Ignazio Thaon di Revel as president dissolved the group after a vote of 50 delegates representing 87 out of 93 chapters with a total membership of 12,000. In a farewell address, Count Revel stated that the organization had been successful in its fight against Communism and anarchism and that all of its aims were accomplished. Three years later we find the Fascio Arnaldo Mussolini Association of Hoboken gathered in Public School No. 3 one evening in 1933 to hear William A. Meyer, Heinz Spanknoebels’ successor as leader of the Friends of New Germany. Meyer, on this suspicious occasion was accompanied by a bodyguard of 20 of his associates dressed in white shirts, blue trousers and blue caps with swastikas. In the speech which Meyer came to deliver, he declared that the object of the Friends of New Germany was to help “the expulsion from the United States of the Communistic Jew”. Since this meeting took place just after the Spanknoebel fiasco in New York, Meyer made certain to announce that while the movement had met with a great deal of opposition in New York City because of the large Jewish element, it was proving successful in the smaller towns of the East. In Union City, he asserted, the number of `Friends’ were increasing daily, and plans had been made for the establishment of a group in Hoboken.

While the Friends of New Germany have recently received a great deal of publicity there remains much that is unknown about their activities in the United States. Nazi agents amply supplied with money from a ten million mark appropriation from the German Government have deluged this country with pamphlets, weeklies, and magazines in an effort to ferment the same creed of racial and religious hatred which Hitler has popularized in Germany. Even mimeographed chain letters have been utilized to spread the vicious doctrines of their party.

According to a report which appeared in the New York Evening Journal of Nov. 1, 1933, Nazi units have been established during the past four years in many cities, including New York, Brooklyn, Rochester, Newark, Montreal, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles. These units were part of the official parent organization of the NSDAP (National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei) but did not, however, reach any significant size until April 1933 when ample finances and new agents were sent here from Germany. The Nazi party then formally dissolved the NSDAP units in this country and organized new cells with new names. These new groups while directly financed and controlled by the Nazi party of Germany are purportedly independent groups having no connection with the German Government.

At first the leadership of New York was given to Paul Paulsen, who immediately commenced an intensive campaign of propaganda. Mail boxes were stuffed with posters and leaflets were inserted in books in the public libraries. Most of these leaflets bore the stamp of the Fichte Association (Fichte-Bund) 30 Jungfernsteig, Hamburg 36. As an illustration of the type of trash widely circulated by the Nazis a short resume of one of the leaflets will be of interest. This one is entitled “The Destroyers of International Goodwill Unmasked”. The leaflet begins by claiming that the things being said about Germany are `monstrosities and atrocities’ and that the following must be taken into account:

1. At the outbreak of the Revolution in Germany, Salamon Kosmanowsky, a Jew who called himself Kurt Eisner, succeeded in getting power over Bavaria and shot ten hostages all of whom were Christians and one of whom was Countess Hell von Westrap. The leaders of the rebellion, however, were all Jews.

2. Under the Bolsheviks countless bishops and priests as well as three million Christians were executed by the Tscheka—an organization under `Jew leadership’. This led to no protest on the part of the Jews.

3. When Hungary tried to rid itself of her `Jewish Oppressor’, Bela Kun, and his murderous accomplices, the World Press cried out, “Down with the White Hungarian Reign of Terror.”

4. Kautsky, a Jew, gained admission to the archives of the foreign office, made extracts of the documents, and thereupon altered and distorted them in the World Press.

5. In the whole of Germany not one person was killed during the National Revolution, yet the lie was spread that 1400 were executed in Hamburg alone.

6. Not a single case of rape was reported, yet it was said that Jewish girls were outraged.

7. Not a Jew was murdered.

8. Not only France but international Jewry and their Marxist followers fear Hitler will put an end to the suffering of the German nation and other countries will follow the suit of Germany in “safeguarding the attainments of Christianity”.

With this sort of drivel, the membership of the Friends of New Germany, within a comparatively short period rose in New York City to 8,000. The Nazis, who at this time were under the leadership of Heinz Spanknoebel, began to center their attention upon the German American societies. These societies claim a nominal membership and influence of about thirteen million, and at first Spanknoebel encountered a great deal of opposition from the leaders of the older groups. These men were well satisfied burghers who did not at that time see the necessity for fascism in the United States, nor the desirability of embroiling themselves in foreign controversies. Spanknoebel, however, had a task to perform and he was here to see it done properly. Soon Spanknoebel gained control of the German American groups.

From the modest beginning made at this meeting the Nazis have progressed so rapidly that today they control practically all of the German groups in the U.S. The few liberal officers, who have felt out of sympathy with Hitler, like the Ridder brothers and Magistrate Brandt Jr. have considered the safety of their own hides as of paramount importance and have resigned their executive positions. It may even be that all of this was a mere show in order to cover up the true situation and that these men too are in sympathy with the movement. At any rate, the field has now been left clear for the untrammeled work of Herr Hitler.

II.

The Silver Shirts

The influence of the fascists, in the United States today, is no longer confined exclusively to the German and Italian groups. In the Middle West and the South, Pelley and his Silver Shirts also bait the Jew and support the Hitler technique. From their headquarters in San Francisco, the Silver Shirts have stretched their hands of hate across the entire country, resorting to all kinds of vandalism in order to propagate their stupidities. On Yom Kippur they plastered Temple Emanuel in New York City with stickers upon which appeared the following dictate:
THE JEWS MUST GO
THE POPE MUST GO
DEMOCRACY MUST GO
To the right of this command the letters K.K.K. appeared in black and to the left the swastika.

. This is typical of the method of their leader, William Dudley Pelley, the fake psychoanalyst and spiritualist. Pelley’s activities have not however, been limited to matters psychic, for the pamphlets issued by the Silver Shirts inform us that this mediocrity is also “….an ex-newspaper publisher from Vermont, who during the war was a Red Triangle man with the United States and Japanese forces in Siberia. He saw Russian Bolshevism introduced as an eye witness…. He made his living writing novels while carrying on eight years of undercover investigation throughout every large state in the union.”

In 1929 he started the League for Liberation. “Its surface purpose was metaphysical research. Under cover it perfected a great national organization.”

“Steadily, inexorably, during 1930, 1931 and 1932, Pelley drew his organization tighter, calked and stabilized it, weeded out the curiosity seekers and the chicken hearted, appointed his key men in all the states of the Union, made his contacts with influential Protestant Christians in Washington.

On Jan. 31, 1933 the day that Hitler came into power in Germany, Pelley came out from under cover with his Silver Shirt National Organization.

“Having planted depots of his facts throughout the entire United States, enlightened police and vigilante groups, secured the cooperation of outraged Christian citizens to carry on regardless of what happens to him personally, his organization of Silver Shirts is now snow balling exactly as Hitler’s Nazis snow balled in Germany when the German people were at last persuaded to the truth.”

But what is the true record of this person who aspires to be the American Hitler? In 1931 he wanted to establish “Galahad College” in the Arcade Building at Asheville, Tenn., but in spite of the statement appearing in one of his pamphlets that in 1929 he had an income of $25,000 a year, he couldn’t convince the renting agents that his credit was worth $80 (the amount of the rent). Undaunted he opened his college in the Asheville Womens Club.

Galahad College then opened its doors to students, with Pelley as president, and began to teach “Christian Economics.” This is Pelley’s favorite brand of economics and consists in the profound knowledge that “The depression is the result of predatory minds. We are anti-Semitic because the Jews are a predatory people.”

With Hitlers ascension to power, Pelley’s adventure inaugurates a reign of profit. Stenographers and clerks were hired. “Liberation,” the echo of Pelley, increased in circulation from 2000 to 8000 subscribers. With the aid of paid assistants and high pressure salesmanship the membership of the Silver Shirts rose rapidly, and big money began to flow into the pockets of Pelley for the fees were high $10 for joining and $1 a month dues.

But where was Pelley during all this? The Travelers Aid Society couldn’t locate him although they were anxious to ask him some important questions concerning students of Galahad College whose return fare they were compelled to pay. Nor could the numerous process servers who were on his trail determine his whereabouts; Pelley, the lion hearted, was in hiding. Only his henchmen knew where to find this discreet charlatan. The Silver Shirts, like all other fascist groups, since they have no real program, supply their members with a uniform. This is indeed one of the most difficult tasks of the fascist organizer since the number of possible colors for shirts is limited. Pelley’s gang, in addition to their silver shirts, wear navy blue knickers, gray golf shoes, a North West Mounted Hat and “the scourge of the cords.” This instrument of torture is best described by “Private Manual No. I,” privately issued to members only.

“The symbolic arms of the Silver Shirts are represented by the scourge of cords.

“It is a constant reminder that an occasion arose in Christ’s life when action was requisite to clear a holy place from befoulment by a type of physical action. He grasped a knout of simple manufacture and dealt vigorous physical blows.”

The implication of this brilliant explanation is very obvious. It does not require the mind of a genius to ascertain for whom the knout is intended. Let us return to the Manual, however, and find out exactly how this knout is to be made.

“The scourge of the Silver Shirts is made by securing a length of tough woven clothesline, not the rolled cotton variety that will shrink or curl, and looping into six lengths, each 24 inches from the rope helve to the tip. “Soak the handle in shellac thoroughly and put aside to harden. Give the handle as many wrappings as may be necessary to create a doughty weapon that will withstand rough usage.

“Let the loops serve as lashes.”

The ideology of the Silver Shirts is in keeping with their instructions on the making of knouts. The rope which will at first be used on the Communists, will later hang the workers and in the end as a finishing touch chastise the Jew.

What better proof do we need of this than the words of their own Maj. Powell: “Of course, we are in sympathy with the Hitler Movement in Germany, and are constantly in touch with his representatives in America.”

Just as the rabid anti-Semitic gospel preached by the Nazis in Germany was used as a cloak to murder the Communists, put them in concentration camps and liquidate the unions and other labor organizations, so in the United States will the imitators of Hitler imprison the workers, shoot their leaders and destroy the unions.

The Crusaders for Economic Liberty

According to a printed statement issued by George W. Christians, the organizer of the Crusader White Shirts, this group has a membership of three million. While there can be no doubt that Christians has grossly exaggerated the number of his followers, nevertheless, one should not for this reason underestimate the potential danger inherent in such organizations as the White Shirts. In view of the vast quantity of literature, leaflets, letters and pamphlets which they have circulated throughout the United States, the White Shirts must have either a considerable following or a great deal of financial support. Whether it be one or the other is to a certain extent immaterial since the fact remains that in any event hundreds of thousands of people in the United States have been bombarded with their propaganda. It is in this way that the foundation is laid for a real fascist leader to take power later when economic contradictions become so acute that the bourgeoisie is driven into an open fascist dictatorship.

Although the White Shirts were chartered and have their headquarters in Chattanooga, Tenn., they have succeeded in attracting to their fold the featherbrained Representative from Pennsylvania, Louis T. McFadden, who as a result has not only sponsored legislation proposed by them but has become so infected with the fascist germ that on May 29, 1933, on the floor of the House of Representatives, he objected to the Repudiation Bill on the ground that it “has given the gold and lawful money of the country to the international money Jews of whom Franklin D. Roosevelt is the familiar….” and was designed by them so that “the Gentiles shall do business with their own bits of paper, while the Jews keep the gold reserve supply safely in their own hands: If the crash comes, ‘Gentiles’ have the paper and the Jews have the gold” It is for this reason, McFadden states, that the “Jews are economists esoteric and exoteric: They have one system to tangle up the ‘Gentiles,’ another which they hope to install when Gentile stupidity has bankrupted the world.”

That McFadden should make such a speech in the House of Representatives is not in the least extraordinary, if one keeps in mind the open, avowed hatred of the Jew and the Communist which is typical of the fascist creeds not only upon the Continent but in this country as well. On the very letterhead of the Crusaders for Economic Liberty (White Shirts) for example, there appears the following tenet in bold type:

CAPITALISM UNDER ECONOMIC LIBERTY OR COMMUNISM UNDER TYRANNY

Economic Liberty, which can be secured only through the White Shirts, will accomplish, according to one of their letters the following objects:

“destroy the money monopoly and dissociate wealth and power
“create an aristocracy of brains instead of wealth, make honesty and the Golden Rule supreme in business
“quickly eliminate practically all crime and wars by making it far more easy for individuals and nations to satisfy their desires honestly and without oppressing others
“destroy party politics and put statesmen by meritorious progression into public office instead of bandwagon politicians
” we shall approach Anarchy under the Golden Rule, stimulate a religious reform movement which will teach the identity of God and Nature, and unite Science and Religion against superstition and dogma.
“The new interpretation of the science of economics provides everything necessary for the complete solution of all economic problems now.”

Of course, by the new interpretation of economics, the Crusaders mean their interpretation of economics, which in turn is synonymous with the Human Monetary Effort System. The Crusaders, however, do not promise to cure economic ills only for “the new interpretation of the science of psychology provides the means for the eventual solution of all moral, social, racial and religious problems,”

This is indeed a Utopia. Here is a grander vision than the petty bourgeoisie has ever dared to imagine could exist in this world. In the past only religion was able to put such divine perspectives before its eyes. The lamb will lie down with the lion. There will be peace on earth, good will towards all men. The Crusaders White Shirts will “make honesty and the Golden Rule supreme in business.” And all of these wonderful things will be brought about by a very simple device, the adoption of the Human Effort Monetary System, a device so easy to comprehend that one is amazed by the thought that this solution was not discovered sooner. Even the Bill, in which it was incorporated and introduced by McFadden on April 6, 1933, in the House of Representatives, is readily understood. Four sentences quoted from this bill are sufficient to outline the entire plan.

“….. the standard to be used as a basis of value of money …. shall be the average wage of male, unskilled, common labor in the States of the Union only at the 1928 level, which is assumed to be 46.62 cents per hour.” This standard of value is to be maintained “by adjusting the interest rate at which this money shall be loaned, so as to stabilize the labor wage ….. that is to say, whenever reports of the United States Department of Labor indicate definitely that the labor wage is below the standard fixed, then the interest rate shall be lowered until the labor wage again reaches the said standard. In case said reports indicate that said labor wage has risen above the said standard the interest rate shall be raised until the labor wage returns to said standard level.”

If this bill is passed it is the contention of the Crusader White Shirts, according to a leaflet widely distributed by them, that it will:

“explode this depression instantly and restore prices;
“prevent future depressions;
“create an open market for labor and guarantee a job to every man who wants to work;
“balance production and consumption;
“deconcentrate wealth;
“raised the standard of living;”

Every one is therefore urged by Christians to support the Bill by holding mass meetings, writing to Congressmen and sending in petitions “by the bale.” For those who cannot understand the technical language of the Bill or who might fail to appreciate the results claimed for it, the Crusaders have, in addition to the leaflet mentioned above, published an eight page pamphlet entitled “Monetary Systems.” In this pamphlet, replete with diagrams, Christians very neatly sums up the entire problem and its solution in the following language:

“Under this system, money would not be based upon gold at all. it would just be money. The government would print it and lend it out to any one who had property of any kind to put up as security. They would lend out as much money as business needed, no matter how much business we did.

“Business would grow until everybody who wanted to work was working. It couldn’t grow any more than that, and then we would not need any more money. More money would cause inflation which would raise wages, but it would also raise the price of everything else, so no one would benefit. If wages started to rise, interest rates should be raised to hold them steady. If wages started to fall or men were thrown out of work, interest rates should be lowered so that money will be borrowed for new business to put men back to work and again hold their wages steady. We couldn’t have a depression because there never would be a shortage of money.”

Now see how simple it becomes. “We couldn’t have a depression because there never would be a shortage of money.” How impressive, how profound, how plausible that must sound to the small shop keeper blessed with well stocked shelves that he cannot convert into much needed cash. The government will lend him money for “property of any kind.” Why this would practically be the same as selling his goods. No longer need he worry about frozen assets, depreciated real estate, worthless stocks and bonds. Here is an easy way out. For years economists, educators, and journalists have been telling the small store keeper that capitalism is a complicated social structure. They have bewildered him with fancy complex, theoretical discussions of inflation and deflation, over production and under consumption, favorable trade balances and unfavorable trade balances, when right under their very noses was a simple expedient whereby all the evils of capitalism could be eradicated over night. Why the greatest simpleton can comprehend the efficacy of the Human Effort Monetary System.

More intelligent individuals may question whether any one could be sufficiently gullible to treat this incredible hooey seriously. Individuals guilty of this attitude make a grave error for the effectiveness of such a program depends to a very large extent upon the fact that the proposed solution is in reality nothing more than the unconscious wish fulfillment of the class which it is designed to attract. With business at a standstill, merchandise that cannot be sold, real property which has no market value, homes in the process of foreclosure, and stocks that have dwindled to zero, the distraught petty bourgeoisie is only too anxious to pin its faith on anything, which promises salvation. A plan such as the Crusaders present looks like the program designed for its benefit. If this is taken away from it what has it left?

III.

Fascists, who have realized the bankruptcy of their ideology, have not hesitated to hide the sterility of their ideas by purchasing from the intellectual Philistines disguises with which to cloak the barrenness of their theories. In the United States, however, where fascism is just poking its head above the horizon and its progeny are not very mature, they generally do not possess sufficient funds to devote to this purpose. They must therefore rely upon other stratagems to obscure the naivete of their panaceas as for example, the manufacture of spurious testimonials from reputable institutions. This is the method which the Crusader White Shirts have utilized to lend their Human Effort Monetary System an air of scientific sanctity. They therefore circulate what purports to be a copy of an indorsement from the Brookings Institution proclaiming Christians’ fantasy as “the soundest of the many schemes for stabilization of prices through credit control” which that institution has had the opportunity to examine. The obviously fraudulent character of this document is not improved upon by its trained effort at erudition, its ridiculous attempt to employ as many impressive technical phrases as possible, its extravagant praise and the patent absurdity of its conclusions.

The Crusaders, however, are in no fear of being detected in their trickery, for they consider their economic program of secondary importance. In one of the leaflets distributed by them, they blatantly announce that “where reasoning power is insufficient to grasp the economics and psychology, it must be replaced by emotional appeal.” After Hitler and Mussolini this declaration is entirely superfluous. It should even be unnecessary to point out the fact that this emotional appeal will make no pretense to subtlety but will proceed in the usual fascist channels of racial prejudice and religious persecution.

It is for this reason that the White Shirts characterize themselves as “a psychological machine designed to remove a psychological obstacle.”

But since even “psychological machines” must have adherents if they are to succeed, the Crusaders tactfully suggest that you must join them “for your own self preservation” or “you will be crushed politically, economically, socially, spiritually, and physically.” If one is properly frightened by these dire threats and, is thereby interested in organizing Crusaders White Shirts, he will then be given the following bulletin of instructions.

“The Crusader White Shirts will be a military organization armed with wooden staffs, officered and drilled in accordance with the United States Army regulations. They shall wear white shirts with a large Red Crusader Cross on the front middle and with small crossed American and Red Crusader flags on the left breast, the White Shirts denoting the purity of our purpose; the Red Crusader Cross denoting the religious significance of the Crusade; the American flag, patriotism; and the Red Crusader flag courage and sacrifice.

“You will need no credentials or authority other than these instructions to organize Crusader White Shirts anywhere. Merely get a group together and furnish them with an American and a Red Crusader flag and the insignia which can be sewed on any white shirt.

“The initiation ceremony merely consists of lining up the applicants in military formation, having them give the military salute to the Economic Independence, and then, while giving the Crusader salute, which consists of raising the outstretched right arm with the fist clenched, to the Red Crusader flag, have them repeat in unison the last sentence of this Declaration. They should then elect their officers, hold frequent parades and mass drills and report for assignment and instructions to their state and regional commanders, if known, or to the National Capital of the Crusaders for Economic Liberty, at Chattanooga, Tenn.

“Organizers can obtain from the Chattanooga Button and Badge Manufacturing Company, . . 3’x5’ Crusader flags at the cost of $3 and sets of insignia at 15 cents each, (cash must accompany order) or he may get them elsewhere if he cares to. It is recommended that the flags be sold for $5.00. It is recommended that in new localities that the insignia be sold for $1.00 per set at the start and that the price be reduced thereafter until finally those who have no money can be told that they can paint a red cross on any old white shirt or make their own. National Headquarters is interested in numbers only. You will find that you will be well paid for your efforts.”

While the above paragraph may strike the reader as ridiculous, he should not for that reason make the mistake of minimizing the potential danger of the White Shirts and the rapidly rising tide of fascism that is sweeping this country. In all fascist movements one naturally finds much that is infantile and barbaric. This fact, however, has not impeded the progress of the fascists in the past and there is no indication that it will in the future.

THE ORDER OF ‘76

This Aryan society of pure-blooded American fascists was organized about a year and a half ago under the protective wing of Royal S. Gulden. Although all prospects are solicited through personal contacts, it claims to already have 100,000 members scattered through out twenty one states of the Union. Most of these men, the writer is informed, are urban dwellers who have lost money in the stock market. An analysis of the membership on an occupational basis would disclose the fact that the majority of them are salesman, minor executives, managers, ex-soldiers, etc. Few laborers have made any effort to join and all women are excluded.

So far the Order of ‘76 has printed no literature since it first desires to merge with an intellectual group capable of supplying it with a program. It has never the less settled four points in its ideology, it opposes the present system, fights Communism, attacks the Jew, and definitely favors fascism. Where labor disputes occur, it openly boasts that it sends in squads to club the strikers,. It also pretends to have an espionage system which enables it to discover all graft in political office but since it has not revealed any information which it may have, it is exceedingly doubtful whether it possesses any knowledge not generally known to the public.

According to their application blank they are “an all American Nationalistic Organization … . believing in and adhering to the Constitution of the United States of America,” and hope “to revive the Spirit, Ideals, and conserve the principles of the Founders of our Republic”. To those who “are in accord with them and are willing to support them by word or deed” they present a detailed application blank similar to a police record. This blank if properly filled in and accompanied by one dollar will then in due time be investigated by a member. If the investigation is satisfactory, another member rechecks it in order to prevent any alien elements from worming their way into the organization.

Since the Order of ‘76 has no publication, it is difficult to secure information concerning them. Their present handicap, however, will not remain permanent. One must realize that a program will be supplied when the need for it arises. Already it is being manufactured by the college professors and thrown at the world for those who wish to use it. In a recently written work by Madison Grant entitled “The Conquest of a Continent or the Expansion of Races in America” which contains an introduction by Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, the author makes a militant plea for the establishment of a Nordic and Protestant America, racially and nationally undefiled. The author further urges the adoption of laws which will keep intact what Prof. Osborn calls the “precious heritage which we should not impair or dilute.” Here is a sample of the type of work which furnishes the pseudo-scientific basis for the program of bigotry and hate which the fascists inevitably adopt.

THE KHAKI SHIRTS

In Europe the fascists have built their organizations around nuclei of the lower and middle officers left stranded by the depression which followed the war. It therefore would have been most unusual if in 1932 an attempt were not made to start a similar movement among our own veterans since the relation of economic forces had by that time so sharply increased their discontent that a large percentage of them were unconsciously in a receptive mood for fascism. Naturally, there still remained some who were under the illusion that government assistance would yet be forthcoming. This element, however, was quickly brought to its senses by the forceful expulsion of the Bonus Marchers from Washington. The time was assuredly ripe for a capable organizer to stampede hundreds of thousands of veterans into the ranks of the fascists. Appropriately, Art Smith, a demagogue with Hitlerite aspirations was sufficiently astute to see in the situation an opportunity to organize his Khaki Shirts. It is indeed fortunate that it was only an Art Smith.

If the Khaki Shirts are weak today, tomorrow may bring a stronger organization to replace them. It is the privileged role of the Art Smiths, the William Pelleys, and the George Christians to lay only the cornerstone of fascism. It is in their rudimentary organizations that the petty bourgeoisie receives its first elementary schooling in dictatorship. It is from the Smiths and the Pelleys that it learns to scrap its democratic scruples, to hate the Jew as the Mephistopheles responsible for depressions and to detest the Communist as the companion creation of the Devil. It is in their lecture rooms that the small shopkeeper and the petty officers avidly absorb the bombastic emotional rantings of the would be American Hitlers who intoxicate their listeners with glorious hallucinations of the past and still more glorious visions of the future under the aegis of fascism. Religious animosity is of course, stressed more than anything else.

On economic problems, the Khaki Shirts are practically silent. The entire subject is summarily dismissed with a few fine sounding quotations from Henry George and the rather indefinite endorsement of a single tax scheme predicated upon the taxation of all idle lands if efficiently worked. But if the Khaki Shirts have no concrete solution to offer, they more than compensate for this deficiency by the lyrical quality of their conclusions as to the results which will accrue when they come into power. Witness this sample of their art.

“Labor and Capital, with no need of any bargaining ‘schotchem’, (professional matchmakers) would find themselves together in the Lover’s Lane of Opportunity; the great tides of Supply and Demand, would flow together would indeed ebb and flow but never at ebb or flood would they be disastrously far from the mean tide level; money as the representative and measure of all material value would flow naturally and regularly as the life stream in the body.”

In their analysis of the more immediate problems of the day such as the role of Roosevelt, the Khaki Shirts are so contradictory that it is difficult to report their position. In a letter addressed to Roosevelt, Art Smith advises the president that any plans which he might propose would be frustrated by the “Invisible Money Power” that holds the nation in its grip; that he should therefore with the aid of the Khaki Shirt Storm Troops establish a dictatorship founded upon the principles of fascism. This letter was immediately followed by marching orders and instructions for the mobilization of the Khaki Shirts. But in an article written by Art Smith the president is attacked as the nominee of the international bankers. The New Deal is also derided as the National Racketeers Association. In the next paragraph, however, Art Smith proceeds to exonerate Roosevelt by stating that he has been ill-advised. It is with incoherent muddled reasoning of the type that the Khaki Shirts are able to attract a following. The petty bourgeoisie must indeed be poverty stricken in its ideology to seek the solace that an Art Smith can give them. But after all what can be expected? The petty bourgeoisie naturally shrinks back from the yawning cavern of proletarianization that faces it. It refuses to see the anachronism of its present status as a buffer class; that it must be ground to pulp between the wheels of history. Instead it clings tenaciously to its worn out aspirations and fights as best it can to prevent being plowed under like cotton.

The fascist movement may be young and immature in the United States, but already it has spilled the blood of Anthony Fierro who had the temerity to be an anti-fascist. For this crime Fierro’s friend who was also an anti-fascist was indicted while the probable murderer, Frank Moffer, one of Art Smith’s Khaki Shirts, was permitted to escape. The trial which followed completely exposed the case which the Khaki Shirts had manufactured against Terzani and pointed the finger of guilt at Moffer. This fact, however, did not lead to the prosecution of Moffer; instead the district attorney focused his attention upon charging Samuel Wein, chief witness for the defense, with perjury for having lied on a previous occasion because his life had been threatened by Art Smith. If this tendency continues to prevail, it will not be long before one will see an open alliance between the courts and the fascists. Terzani’s release was accomplished only by the prompt action of the working class in setting up a united front in his defense.

In the Terzani case, the Fascist organizations with their prime appeal to the petty bourgeoisie and to the declassed elements, have already openly begun to fulfill their anti working class function. In spite of Art Smith’s apprehension for perjury in the Terzani trial the Khaki Shirts have threatened—so we have been informed—to break up an anti Fascist mass meeting soon to be called in Paterson, New Jersey. The Fascist organizations for the most part, however, are so far rather the product of the unrest of the times than the instruments for a change of regime. It is the pressure of the world crisis, the inescapable contradictions of U. S. capitalism itself which are driving the country more and more rapidly towards a course which, if the strong arm of the working class does not intervene to change the course of events—is likely to pave the way for actual fascism.

The Communist League of Struggle was formed in March, 1931 by C.P. veterans Albert Weisbord, Vera Buch, Sam Fisher and co-thinkers after briefly being members of the Communist League of America led by James P. Cannon. In addition to leaflets and pamphlets, the C.L.S. had a mostly monthly magazine, Class Struggle, and issued a shipyard workers shop paper,The Red Dreadnaught. Always a small organization, the C.L.S. did not grow in the 1930s and disbanded in 1937.

PDF of original issue: https://archive.org/download/the-class-struggle_1934-01_4_1/the-class-struggle_1934-01_4_1.pdf

PDF of issue 2: https://archive.org/download/the-class-struggle_1934-02_4_2/the-class-struggle_1934-02_4_2.pdf

PDF of issue 3: https://archive.org/download/the-class-struggle_1934-03_4_3/the-class-struggle_1934-03_4_3.pdf